Chandigarh, Nov 4 (IANS) Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Punjab Assembly and veteran Congress leader, Partap Singh Bajwa, on Tuesday, lambasted the Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, accusing him of betraying the trust of state’s women through repeated lies and empty promises regarding the Rs 1,000 per month financial assistance scheme announced before the 2022 Assembly elections.

Bajwa said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power riding on the hopes of lakhs of women who believed in Mann’s promise of direct financial support.

“Three years later, that promise lies buried under excuses and false assurances. Each time women remind the Chief Minister of his commitment, he dodges the issue with one pretext or another,” the LoP said in a statement.

The veteran Congress leader said that during the Tarn Taran Assembly bye-election campaign that the women once again demanded answers from Chief Minister Mann, only to be given yet another hollow assurance that the scheme would now be implemented in the 2026-27 Budget session.

Before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, CM Mann even tried to sweeten his deception by announcing that the monthly amount would be Rs 1,100 instead of Rs 1,000.

He confidently declared that the scheme would roll out immediately after the elections.

However, the 2025-26 state Budget came and went without a single mention of this so-called flagship scheme, Bajwa said.

Calling the promise a “classic case of political betrayal”, the LoP said the Mann government had cruelly misled Punjab’s women, using their hopes for electoral gain.

“If the Chief Minister truly intends to fulfill his long-delayed promise in 2026-27, he must also pay women the arrears dating back to 2022 — the year he pledged to launch this scheme right after forming the AAP government in Punjab,” Bajwa asserted.

He added the repeated deferrals of the scheme expose the hollow governance and false propaganda of the AAP government.

“The women of Punjab will not forgive a government that used their empowerment as a campaign slogan and then conveniently forgot them after securing power,” Bajwa said.

–IANS

vg/khz